17. 08. 2004

Broadcast Act Amendments on agenda for wednesday

BELGRADE, August 17, 2004 (B92) – Amendments to the Broadcast Act are to be debated under urgent procedures at an extraordinary sitting of the Serbian Parliament tomorrow. The parliament’s Culture and Information Committee today adopted the Bill on Amending the Broadcast Act, which provides for appointing new members to the Broadcast Agency Council. Under the proposed changes, candidates will be nominated by a parliamentary committee, instead of by the parliament and the governments of Serbia and Vojvodina as at present. However the Vojvodina Assembly will retain the right to nominate one Council member as will other nominating bodies, each of whom are to submit two candidates. The Independent Association of Serbian Journalists, the Association of Independent Electronic Media and the Media Centre have sought a moratorium on the amendments. ANEM chairman Slobodan Stojsic says this is needed because the new proposal does not make any significant changes to the Act and because proposals by ANEM for a compromise have neither been adopted nor evaluated by professional consultants. “The government will retain an absolute monopoly on the Broadcast Council, and the present chaos in broadcasting will continue. There is a lack of transparency in putting this on the parliament agenda in the middle of August, under urgent procedures and with no public or professional debate,” said Stojsic. Broadcast Council chairman Nenad Cekic, however, says that the council supports the amendments to the Act because they are the only way in which changes can be made to the Council and years of chaos in the airwaves be brought to an end. Cekic emphasised that the council itself is not responsible for the disrepute brought on the body by the way in which its members were elected, adding that the predominance of civil sector influence in the council is a matter of myth. “Someone is responsible for the creation of this situation, a situation in which the council is disputed, and that’s your company,” he told B92. “If this situation had not been created, no one would have been dismissed, so the whole thing is pretty clear. We agreed to all of this to avoid Serbia being exposed to various forms of denunciation at international forums, claims that we have chaos here, that someone wants to close down B92, for example. “I’ve said about eighteen times that I don’t want to close anyone down and that, if I could, I would be happy to sign a licence immediately so that everything would be clear, but I can’t do this under the law,” said Cekic. It should be noted that the problems with the council arose with the election of Cekic himself and another council member, Vladimir Cvetkovic, when it was alleged that procedural regulations were not followed in their appointment. The ninth council member, Goran Radenovic who, under the law, is appointed by the other council members to represent Kosovo, has also been the subject of investigation on charges that he supplied incorrect information about his home address and place of work prior to being appointed. The proposed amendments to the Act would terminate the appointments of the present members of the council, but would not prohibit them from being re-elected.